


Burnt Out Stars

by ALC_Punk



Category: The Bletchley Circle
Genre: Angst, F/F, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 15:38:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1946700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ALC_Punk/pseuds/ALC_Punk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Susan is aware of what could be between her and Millie, but life has already chosen her path for her (no happy endings, here). Set fairly soon after the first series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burnt Out Stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this... I'm honestly not sure, but I wrote it long before the second series was even more than a possibility. I'm not sure why I've never posted it. It's not a happy piece, but it is how I felt things would go, inevitably. It is possible it was written for a prompt, at some point. 
> 
> I would have considered this gen, but it really is mostly about their relationship. Just not in a happy way.

"I almost lost you."

Susan watches the smoke curl up towards the ceiling. If she watches it long enough, it will blur. It will blur into a nothingness, like the memories she's been pretending don't exist, the nightmares that pull at her so that she can't sleep. It never works, of course.

There's always a pattern in the smoke.

An impatient sound comes from Millie and then she's up from her chair, lips around her fag, one hand on her hip. Moving to the window, watching the street outside.

Something to prove that Susan's silence isn't getting to her.

Closing her eyes won't change the patterns, and Susan follows the patches of the smoke until, inevitably, she's watching Millie's back. "But you didn't."

As though she is something Millie could ever _lose_ (Susan tells herself that she never wanted to be anything of the sort). They were colleagues and friends, and then they lost touch. There were no promises, nothing to bridge the gaps in their lifestyles and plans for the future. Susan hadn't really _wanted_ whirlwind tours and African jungles.

The money wouldn't have been there, and by the time it might have been, she was pregnant. Married and already settled into the pattern of life the world designed for her.

"It was just, I'm a mother," Susan says, as though in answer to something Millie was going to say. Or perhaps has said.

Millie's fingers are shaking as she stubs her cigarette out on the sill, the movement vicious. "Yes. Of course you are."

Not something Susan can change. After the war, there was that rush of euphoria, that sense that they had accomplished so much and done something _right_. And the world called for celebrations, for women to return to their former lives. For Susan, stepping back into that roll, finding Timothy, had been too easy.

But Millie had rebelled--even from the first, she'd been someone pushing against the grain. Pushing Susan, pushing Lucy, teasing Jean. Millie would never be content with settling.

Settling was for the girls who'd stayed home, girls who hadn't a thought in their heads outside of who was marrying whom (Susan wonders if such women actually exist, or if they're all carefully-constructed facades in order to hide a gaping, _painful_ , truth).

The sort of girl Susan had always wished she was, as she sat on the outskirts of their gossiping groups. Even at Bletchley, there had been groups. Girls and women who found one another, who matched interests and ideas.

She had never been quite sure what Millie had seen in her, how that brilliant, red-haired glamorous whirlwind had grabbed hold of Susan (and of Lucy and Jean, pulling them all into her orbit--or thrusting herself upon theirs; another thing Susan would never be quite certain of). They had found something akin in each other.

Children had changed that, Susan was certain. Children, and time.

Looking at Millie now wasn't like looking at an image of the past. There were lines and history on Millie's face and form now. Not completely visible, yet there in the way she moved in the patterns of the smoke that essayed from her pursed lips.

"We can't go back." Susan says the words quietly, wondering if Millie will understand all of the meanings inherent.

Of course she would. Millie shakes her head, lights another cigarette and drops into the chair opposite Susan in a swirl of smoke and movement. Millie has never liked being still. Susan could have stood for hours in the crowded huts at Bletchley, but Millie had always been up and about, a constant whirlwind of ideas and words, codes and smiles.

Lips as red as blood... There are no fairy tale endings here. Susan reaches for her tea-cup and a sip of the too-sweet, milky dullness.

"I've got some brandy, if you'd rather have that."

They'd always known each other too well (and not at all). Susan sets the cup down, wondering if the brandy would improve the flavor. "It's fine."

"Is this what we're reduced to, now?" Millie's eyes are flashing, as though her anger is easier to take out on Susan in the here and now than on missed opportunities and a past they both knew wouldn't happen the way they'd want. "Speaking about tea and brandies? When we're old and grey, Susan, do you think we'll be trading biscuit receipts?"

"I've always liked the little tins you get at Sainsbury's."

For a moment, Millie stars at her, eyes still angry. Then she laughs, leaning back in the chair--not at ease, but more contained. There's something indefinable in her eyes. "You'll never leave him."

It's a statement, not a question, and Susan thinks of a hundred replies. Castigation for asking such a personal question, accusations or confusion. All the things that would spell lies between them. Her eyes focus on Millie's lips, remembering the taste of lip balm and beeswax. "I have children now."

"Yes."

Susan hadn't meant to repeat her point, but Millie seems to take it differently this time, cigarette dangling off her fingers while she reaches for her own tea. "I wasn't yours to lose."

The tea stays in the cup as Millie looks at Susan. Her voice is brittle when she replies, "It needed only that, you know."

Millie's hands are shaking. Susan doesn't ever remember Millie's hands shaking before. Not even the two times there'd been bomb threats at Bletchley, and they'd gone to ground under their desks in the hut. Millie'd had cigarettes and salacious whispers to keep them all occupied and off the subject of their possible deaths.

"That was--" Susan is at a loss for the right words and she stands instead of finishing. Her tea cup turned so the handle is just so, she steps around the table and stands in front of Millie. "You saved me. Thank you."

_You saved us all, more than once,_ she thinks, but doesn't say.

Millie looks up at her, eyes unreadable for a moment before she taps the cigarette out and shrugs. "I couldn't have done anything else."

For an instant, Susan is back in that room, the stone of the walls and the crumbling dirt smell clogging her nostrils. The terror and sheer helplessness wash over her. Nothing she could do, nowhere she could run. Susan had never planned to be a killer, and she wouldn't start now.

But that was in the past.

A breath in. A breath out, and she's looking away from Millie, wondering what made her come by in the first place.

"It will be tea-time soon. I should get back for the children."

Millie's fingers are quick, light, but they touch her wrist and make Susan look back downwards.

The cigarette is still slowly smoking on the ash tray, and Millie's eyes are clear again. Bright and dangerous, she smiles a little. "You could always run away with me. I've still got friends in Paris, Africa--there's this little village where--"

"No." Susan's lips don't smile. She's never been one for smiling, not like Millie with her red lips or Lucy with her quick grins of accomplishment. "That doesn't really sound appealing."

Millie's fingers take up the cigarette again, rolling it around. "I didn't think it would."

It would be a simple thing to lean down, to stop Millie's fidgeting, to taste lip-gloss and cigarette smoke and tea. To bring the past back for an instant, feel that swirl of _this pattern and that code and this is who we are, winning the war_ excitement burst through her.

She doesn't, of course. Susan is no longer that woman. She clears her throat, "We'll have to meet up again sometime."

Already, it's the distance of time and station that pull at her. With her job gone, Millie has no ties to this area anymore, only Lucy to see to and that's a responsibility Millie might never shoulder. She could be gone in an instant, flying off to Paris or somewhere less grand. Susan has children and a husband, solid things under her feet and firm places that she belongs.

(Her mind might swirl with patterns, coincidences and maps meeting and dissecting each other, but they are not where she belongs)

"I'd like that," Millie says, and there's a warmth in her voice that's more than friendship.

Acknowledging the warmth would be far too easy, and so Susan ignores it. Steps away and begins to sort out the cups and teapot, the little sugar bowl and pitcher of milk balancing each other out. "I won't promise to write."

The words echo hollowly around them, almost taking on a life of their own before Millie half-laughs. "I wouldn't expect you to. Besides, I'll be right here, not somewhere in darkest Africa or the Punjab."

Susan's coat is hung on top of a shawl and two scarves--she fingers their material for a moment before swinging the coat free and shrugging it on. "I'll see you and Lucy soon, check in with Jean." The scarves are silky, the shawl knitted and bulky, the threads catching at her fingers. Susan wonders if they came from Morroco, with its spices and strange people she'll never meet.

The snap of Millie's lighter is loud in the room and she blows out another cloud of smoke before smiling brilliantly. "Tell the children I send my love, darling."

"I will. Take care of yourself." Susan leaves before Millie can reply. Hears the lock turned as she walks away. They will all be fine, she tells herself as she steps onto the pavement and chooses her direction. Jean will go on as she had before, Lucy will gain her confidence back, Millie will find employment again (and perhaps run away, though Susan doubts that). And herself?

She will remember who she is now, whom she loves.

There is no past she can return to, only a future that's already been set for her.

The patterns of the world are hard to break. The expectations of a life-time set in something not-quite stone. But resolute. Dreams are harder to grasp than reality, though Susan loves her children fiercely.

If she had world enough and time... But life was never that simple.


End file.
